Description

To Shoe or Not to Shoe by Andy Warhol

A la Recherche du Shoe Perdu from the Shoe Portfolio by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol loved to draw shoes—high heels, pumps, or jeweled stilettos—and they were among his first subjects when he worked as a young commercial fashion illustrator in 1950s New York. Later on, in 1980, once Warhol had achieved fame as an artist, he returned to portraying footwear.

Although best known for his silkscreen paintings, Andy Warhol was also an excellent draughtsman. Drawing was a constant part of his artistic practice. Each of the sixteen images in this portfolio features a shoe centrally placed on the page accompanied by a simple line of text, a verbal-visual composition mimicking the picture and ad copy of advertisements. Each of the works in “A la Recherche du Shoe Perdu” were hand-colored. Andy Warhol’s mother helped developed the phrases that go along with each shoe.

More than twenty years after his death, Andy Warhol remains one of the most influential figures in contemporary art and culture. Warhol’s life and work inspires creative thinkers worldwide thanks to his enduring imagery, his artfully cultivated celebrity, and the ongoing research of dedicated scholars. His impact as an artist is far deeper and greater than his one prescient observation that “everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” His omnivorous curiosity resulted in an enormous body of work that spanned every available medium and most importantly contributed to the collapse of boundaries between high and low culture.

A skilled (analog) social networker, Warhol parlayed his fame, one connection at a time, to the status of a globally recognized brand. Decades before widespread reliance on portable media devices, he documented his daily activities and interactions on his traveling audio tape recorder and beloved Minox 35EL camera. Predating the hyper-personal outlets now provided online, Warhol captured life’s every minute detail in all its messy, ordinary glamour and broadcast it through his work, to a wide and receptive audience.